Lexington leaders consider how to tackle youth mental health crisis

By Jill Jaracz lexington@wickedlocal.com

Thursday

Sep 28, 2017 at 3:08 PMSep 28, 2017 at 3:08 PM

In an unprecedented move, the Lexington Board of Selectmen and the Lexington School Committee met Wednesday, Sept. 28 to consider the town's simmering youth mental health problems, and what to do about them.

Facilitator Wendy Rundle led the calm and measured conversation, which stemmed from two student suicides this past spring. The School Committee wanted to look at the town's approach to mental health.

"What services are in place, what's working, what needs tweaking, what the people actually implementing those services need from us policymakers," said School Committee chair Alessandro Alessandrini.

One in 10 made suicide plan

Lexington Public Schools provided information from the recent Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) conducted at both the high school and middle school level. Among the behaviors examined, the survey found that the number of students considering suicide increased at both levels.

At high school, this number increased 2.2 percent from 2015 to 17.2 percent of students in 2017. In the 2017 survey, 10.4 percent reported making a suicide plan, and 4 percent attempted suicide.

At the seventh and eighth grade level, 15.4 percent considered suicide, a 2.2 percent increase from 2015. The survey also saw increases in the number of students who created a suicide plan or attempted suicide. Selectmen Vice-Chairman Peter Kelley noted this meant about 10 middle school students per grade were attempting suicide.

"It's a tremendous concern. The suicide attempts shocked me,” he said. “We're identifying hot points more than we've been able to up until now."

Selectmen noted the town also provides human services support to adults and seniors, including those who speak English as a second language, and that senior isolation is a concern.

Additionally, the Human Services Department provided an overview showing an increase in calls and walk-in visits to the department, as well as an increase in calls to Youth and Family Services for support and referrals.

Calls for more action

During the meeting, both boards were surprised at the breadth of services offered through the schools and the town, but noted that both groups could do better at communicating services and de-stigmatizing mental health.

However, School Committee member Jessie Steigerwald said they could do more, especially in terms of creating protocol for how to deal with certain situations, including suicide.

"These are not easy conversations, but we need to have more," she said.

Steigerwald said mental health services are a "top three" priority in the school budget, but she didn't know how the town prioritized it.

Selectmen Chair Suzanne Barry said the two groups budget differently, with the schools having one pool of money, while the town's budget is lean and is divided into various buckets. Tthe town is working on 21 goals, and mental health and youth services are in that list, "but we deal with a lot more than just schools and education," she said.

Alessandrini said the two groups' next steps would be to hear from staff members at the school at town and to have a facilitated discussion to understand what is happening on the front levels of services.

School superintendent Mary Czajkowski applauded the two boards for their "courage and commitment" to this effort.

"The fact that two policy boards are coming together to have this conversation, I think this is the most critical work of the district in Lexington right now," she said.

Neither boards took public comment during the meeting, but members of the audience were invited to leave their feedback on cards or via email.

"This is the beginning of a process,” Barry said. “This is our first step, and I think we did make some progress tonight, so I think we should be proud of that but not lose the momentum going forward."

Optimism for future efforts

Response to the meeting was cautiously optimistic from those in attendance.

"It was a good meeting, It was a great start," said Bill Blout, a social worker and activist for youth issues. "I think it's remarkable that these two groups haven't sat together and dealt with this issue before now. On the other hand, it's terrific that they're doing it. It's a long time coming."

Lexington resident Claire Sheth applauded the joint effort.

"I think these are big questions outside of Lexington. I think it's complicated by the myriad of factors that contribute to why our kids are feeling stressed or why our seniors are feeling isolated,” she said. “I think there will always be limitations to what we can achieve, but having the conversation is a critical first step, and I'm hopeful we can move the needle a bit just by bringing it more to the public's consciousness that we can ask more of the municipal side of the government."